The scenic northeastern port city of Dalian is a promised land for many with passions and intelligence, who constitute the country's middle class.

Wan fang, who works as an enterprise planner, receives an annual pay of nearly 200,000 yuan (about US$24,000) in only his second year of work. That is tantamount to what the 27-year-old's parents earned during the past eight years.

"People of our generation may consider more about how to break away from the past uptight life," said Wan. "We worked hard in university to bring our families wealth through knowledge."

Sociologist Bao Degong from Northeast University said more than 80 million Chinese can be categorized middle class.

Bao said middle class people are primarily found in coastal areas. They are owners of small and medium private enterprises, township entrepreneurs and tech specialists.

Zheng Tianshun, in his 30s, is a technician of table planning machines in a state-run factory in Shenyang, Liaoning Province. He is very satisfied with his monthly pay of 5,000 yuan (about US$603), the maximum payment for workers of his level in the city.

"An old hand of a complicated skill, I am paid 10 times as much as that of normal workers," said Zheng. "The harder you work, the more you will earn."

However, 20 years ago, people with higher pay would live in an embarrassing condition when equalitarianism prevailed in China, Bao said. "At that time a better economic situation might incur jeers and even despite from the majority of others, at the time, an extremely abnormal phenomena."

China's economic reform has brought about a brand-new society, in which people with money and good educational backgrounds have quickly found their positions and formed the middle class in China, Bao said.

The knowledge-based economy in China today, in addition to the central government's strategy of constructing the country with science and technologies, has boosted the rapid development of higher education. This is the incubator of the middle class, he said.

The report made by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said China's middle class will be remarkably expanded in the coming eight to 10 years.

(Xinhua News Agency November 8, 2004)